Postgame ponderings

You’d think a 5-4 regulation win in a tight playoff race, over a team that was one point behind you entering the night would be a cause for celebration. Not for this Predators team. Nashville almost blew a 5-1 lead to the Anaheim Ducks in a pivotal game. Twice, David Legwand passed up empty net opportunities in the final three minutes to try to get Sergei Kostitsyn a hat trick. As a teammate, it wasn’t exactly a bad call. But as a professional hockey player trying to ice a game with enormous playoff implications, well, Coach Barry Trotz had a problem with it. He ripped into the plays twice during his postgame press conference.

Here are your postgame ponderings …

Take away Trotz’s postgame rant and forget about how the Predators won. As mentioned earlier, they took a game in regulation from a team they needed to beat. The Predators are now three points clear of Anaheim with the Ducks having one game in hand. Nashville is also four points clear of Dallas with the Stars having two in hand. If the Predators beat the Stars in regulation on Saturday, the Predators will come as close as possible to clinching a postseason berth without actually doing so.

The Predators have now given up five power play goals in their last four games. The penalty kill is probably somewhat of a concern, but both Anaheim power play goals came off 5-on-3s. Those are hard to kill once, let alone twice.

I’m not privy to Anaheim’s practices, so I can’t say what their Coach Randy Carlyle sees, but the Ducks made the wrong choice in starting Jonas Hiller tonight. You could tell he wasn’t quite up to snuff. After not starting since Feb. 13, to come in right in the middle of a playoff race in the most important game of the season is not easy. He didn’t look as comfortable as Dan Ellis. With 8:23 remaining in the first period, the All-Star had given up Nashville’s magic number of three goals. The game wasn’t over at that point, but the deficit was tough to close for Anaheim.

For those who did not watch the game: do not look at the numbers as a reflection of how Pekka Rinne played. He was once again excellent. His play at the end of the first period pretty much won the game for Nashville. The fact that Tim Thomas shut out Montreal in a widely covered game probably pushed him ahead even further in the Vezina Trophy race. But without Rinne, the Predators would have been down 5-3 in the first period. The Ducks had that many scoring chances and Rinne was that good.

There has to be some concern with Mike Fisher. For the second straight game, he played fewer minutes than Nick Spaling. This is not a slight at Spaling, but he plays the same type of checking center role, and makes almost $3,308,333 million less than Fisher. It’s clear that Fisher hasn’t been the same player since his upper body injury against Minnesota on March 10. Since then he hasn’t played more than 17:47. Before that game he hit the 20-minute mark four times in his 12 previous games as a Predator.